Art, Crayons and Guardian Angels
by tashasfic
Summary: Preevo. Jean and Scott as the first two students.


Art, Crayons and Guardian Angels  
by  
Tasha  
  
Disclaimer: The X-men aren't mine.  
  
Note: Some of my words may be in British English, while others may be in American English. I'm sorry if this causes any confusion.  
  
This fic takes place pre-evolution, when Jean and Scott are the only two students at the institute.  
  
The day he realized the trouble she'd take to keep him as a friend was during his second week at school.  
  
He attended a co-ed school. She attended, on the firm insistence of her father, a small, private, all girl's school. She loved art, and thoroughly enjoyed mixing her paints in an effort to discover a new color, or painstakingly make charcoal drawings of the few people she counted as her friends, some of the likenesses, such as the Professor's benign smile, or Logan's pronounced chin were regarded as decidedly like that of their actual models.  
  
She greatly admired the various painters of the world; especially those of the Renaissance period in Europe, and would spend hours in the small room the Professor had sanctioned off to her to keep her art work in, in an effort to copy the works of those she admired. Her little studio reflected a mixture of various influences, from the plump, buxom women of a Rubens in one corner, to the soft colors of her painted water lilies which suggested the influence of Monet, to the geometrically cubic, distorted figures which could only have been adopted from a Picasso. Her passion for art was one which was not commonly seen in girls her age, but then, she was an exceptional child, one of the few 'gifted' people in the world to posses powers which were unlike anything any person would imagine the girl with her unruly, long locks and large, green eyes to have.  
  
'Little Raphael' as her beloved Professor called her would often spend hours outdoors, a sketch pad and pencil in her hand, painstakingly trying to copy the "most perfect flower she had ever seen," or the "prettiest butterfly in the world," and though he teased her about her continuous drawing, he was immensely proud of her 'works', so much though as if he had been the artist himself, and even kept the first painting she had done of him framed on his desk.  
  
He had spent much of his life out of school. Orphaned at the age of eight due to a fatal accident which had cost him his entire family, he had lain in a coma for almost half a year before he had been sent to an orphanage and then shuttled around from foster home to foster home, eventually ending up homeless on the street, and only finally to have deadly lasers erupt from his eyes which forced him to wear a blindfold every moment of the day. Even after being adopted by Professor Xavier, it was months before he was able to exchange his blindfold for a pair of ruby quartz glasses, specially designed to contain his mutation; yet he could only see in the color red. The world was rose colored to him, painted in shades of crimson, scarlet and maroon, with the occasional shadow of black or deep gray.  
  
When he was finally able to see again, the topic of his schooling, quite naturally came up, and he had, as a result begun to attend a public school nearby. Twice a week they had art at school, and by his third week he had decided that he hated it.  
  
"Why do you hate drawing?" she had asked him.  
  
"I don't mind drawing, "he had replied. "It's the coloring I don't like."  
  
"Why?" She had persisted in asking.  
  
"The other kids laugh when they see my pictures. I can't color normally," he'd answered hesitatingly, hating to reveal any weakness in his outwardly strong character. "It's all one color to me," he had explained. "However much I try, my sky invariably comes out pink and my trees purple."  
  
"You could say it's supposed to be twilight in the picture," she had suggested unreasonably.  
  
"Yeah well, not if I also have a large, green sun shining in the sky," he had complained. "It's hopeless, they're going to fail me in art."  
  
The conversation ended there, but her thoughts on his words did not.  
  
Two days later, he had art yet once again. Miserably, he pulled out his pack of crayons to color in his picture. As he looked down at his much hated coloring tools, a sudden smile lit up his face. On each crayon, someone – it had to be her – had painstakingly carved the words of each crayon into the hard, wax surface.  
  
He got his first B-plus in art that day. He never thanked her, but simply showed her the graded picture with a smile on his face. The title of the picture was supposed to be 'Something Perfect' and on the paper, he had drawn a red haired angel, a golden halo encircling her head.  
  
Legally the professor was his guardian, but she was the one who guarded his fears, the one in whom he confided.  
  
Not many people know their guardian angel. He always felt fortunate that he knew his.  
  
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